Fevers in children might be complicated for folks. Your youngster would possibly look actually sick however have a low-grade fever. Or you can have a child with a fairly excessive temperature who’s in any other case not appearing sick in any respect. Just what’s your youngster’s temperature telling you?
In normal, the fever itself doesn’t inform you or your youngster’s physician an entire lot. The greatest info comes from the opposite signs which might be current together with the fever. Those different signs assist us determine what’s occurring along with your youngster and the way greatest to deal with the sickness.
It’s vital to notice right here that the knowledge I’m discussing on this publish applies to kids older than 2 months of age. If an toddler lower than 2 months of age has a rectal temperature of 100.4°F or greater, name your pediatrician instantly as that is thought-about a medical emergency.
These are the questions I most frequently hear in relation to fevers:
1. What is a fever?
A fever shouldn’t be an sickness; it’s a symptom of an sickness. Fevers are a response of the physique’s immune system to battle an an infection. Simply put, fevers are the physique doing its job attempting to get an an infection to go away. A fever itself doesn’t trigger any hurt.
2. What temperature is taken into account a fever?
A rectal temperature of 100.4°F (38°C) or greater is taken into account a fever.
Body temperature can fluctuate all through the day. 98.6°F (37°C) is taken into account regular, however train, how your youngster is dressed, and even what they eat or drink can change their physique temperature. So a rectal temperature as much as and together with 100.3°F (37.9 C) can nonetheless be thought-about regular.
In normal, children are likely to have greater fevers than adults. But how excessive a temperature is doesn’t essentially inform how sick your youngster is.
3. What is one of the simplest ways to take a baby’s temperature?
I encourage taking rectal temperatures as much as age 3 months, as a result of they’re probably the most correct when it comes to measuring physique temperature. By age 4 or 5 years, you can begin working along with your youngster to take an oral temperature.
An axillary temperature (with the thermometer positioned within the armpit) is the least efficient measure of physique temperature, however it may be helpful in case your youngster is sleeping or to observe the trajectory of a temperature. Other forms of thermometers embody temporal artery thermometers for the brow (for all ages) and tympanic thermometers for the ear (for youngsters 6 months and older).
Whatever approach you are taking your youngster’s temperature, write these items down every time you are taking it:
- The time you took your youngster’s temperature
- What the temperature was
- How you took it—rectal, oral, axillary or a special methodology
This info could also be helpful in your pediatrician.
Remember to take your youngster’s temperature earlier than giving them any fever-reducing treatment.
4. How lengthy can fevers cling round?
A typical run-of-the-mill virus may cause a fever that lasts as much as 5 days.
With lots of viruses we see, your youngster might not have a fever within the morning however could have one within the night. This doesn’t imply the kid is getting sicker all through the day or has picked up a brand new sickness; it’s merely the traditional course of the virus. (We particularly see this quite a bit with summer time viruses.)
High fevers which might be persistent and return over and over might be a sign of a extra critical sickness. In these instances, keep watch over it, monitor your youngster’s fevers, and keep up a correspondence along with your physician about how usually they happen and the way excessive they get.